Memoirs and morsels from home and abroad

we can work it out

When my friend Lau (the one who gave me the piggy and likes compote aux pommes) played a few songs off of Israeli singer Noa‘s “best of” CD from France (“Le Meilleur de Noa“) a few years ago, I was hooked. Within a year, I had bought almost all of her CDs, importing many from Israel. In particular, I love her 2002 remake of the Beatles hit “We Can Work it Out” with Palestinian Mira Awad. A note on Awad’s nationality — on her website, she refers to herself as Palestinian, so I am deferring to her preference; I have elsewhere seen her called “Israeli Arab” and “Israeli Arab Christian.” I think this song is a beautiful cover with a great message. And it appealed to my love of music and art (and dance) bringing people together.

NOTE: This video is from a Dutch TV show that includes Noa’s and Mira’s opinions on the political situation in Israel. The song is on Noa’s CD “Now” and on iTunes.

And then about 2 months ago, I learned that Noa and Mira Awad are again collaborating and I have been eagerly waiting to find out what they would come up with: they will represent Israel in the Eurovision song contest in May 2009. They composed 4 different duets and the winner, “Einayich” means “Your Eyes;” the English title is “There Must be Another Way” and it is sung in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. Since I first heard it a few weeks ago, I have found myself humming its refrain, loving how Noa and Mira’s voices mix so beautifully.

והדמעות זולגות זורמות לשוא – and the tears fall, flow, in vain –כאב ללא שם – our pain has no name –אנחנו מחכות – we are both waiting –רק ליום שיבוא אחרי … – for the day ‘after’ –There must be another way
There must be another way

And when I cry I cry for both of us
My pain has no name
And when I cry I cry to the merciless sky and say
There must be another way

והדמעות זולגות זורמות לשוא – and the tears fall, flow, in vain –כאב ללא שם – our pain has no name –אנחנו מחכות – we are both waiting –רק ליום שיבוא אחרי – for the day ‘after’ –There must be another way
There must be another way
There must be another, must be another way

Obviously I’m not the only one to recognize the overt symbolism here (for example, there was an article written in Time about it last week) — an Israeli and a Palestinian, their voices rising together on the same stage, representing one country.

But, perhaps I was one of the few people inspired to make a salad!

The first time I made this particular salad was for my graduate school’s multicultural food festival. I managed to step into a little controversy by being an American helping out the Israeli club and not quite following directions. We divvied up responsibilities – falafel, hummus, tabbouli, and Israeli salad — and I chose to make the salad because it was the healthiest. Plus, I figured I knew how to make typical Israeli salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, and parsley or mint because when I volunteered with the Israeli army through Sar El after my freshman year in college, we ate this salad with every single meal including breakfast.

Never satisfied to leave simple enough alone, I had just bought a new cookbook — Joan Nathan’s The Foods of Israel Today — and browsing through it, found a recipe called “Kibbutz Vegetable Salad” that was described as follows:

Sometimes called Turkish Salad, this typical Israeli salad, served at almost every meal, has many variations. But one thing remains the same: the tomatoes, onions, peppers, and cucumbers must be cut into tiny pieces, a practice of the Ottoman Empire…

It sounded to me like a traditional “Israeli salad” with some peppers thrown in. I actually think of “Turkish” salad as a cooked salad, almost like a tomato sauce spiced with roasted peppers. In my mind, the salad described in the recipe seemed like a more colorful version of traditional “Israeli salad.”

But when I brough this salad to the food festival, proud of my beautiful confetti of colors, one of my Israeli classmates looked at it, sneered, and said, “that’s not Israeli salad, that’s Arab salad.” Hers looked something like this:

just tomatoes and cucumbers

While perhaps not perfectly authentic, my salad didn’t deserve a snub. This comment just made me want to throw my hands up in the air and say, “Can’t we all just get along?”.

And, actually, in doing my research, my understanding is that “Arabic salad” is more similar to “Israeli salad” than it is different. Both have finely diced cucumber and tomatoes. Both usually add onion, often spring onion. Both are dressed with olive oil and lemon. Both add a green herb, either parsley or mint or both. Neither ever includes lettuce.

So what was my classmate objecting to? The peppers? Was that supposed to be a statement? Please! The food festival was about food and sharing culture, not political statements. Granted, never having lived in Israel, I know I cannot understand the intricacies of Arab/Palestinian-Israeli relations nor can I fully appreciate the depth of the feelings and animosity between these two groups.

But I love the message that Noa and Mira Awad have shared with each other, with their communities, and, now more than ever, with the world. The current situation is unsustainable. There must be another way. And if Israelis and Palestinians come together and find common ground, slowly … eventually… we can work it out.

Yes, I am an idealist.

So, I used to call this Israeli salad. I no longer know what it actually is. But now I’m reclaiming it and renaming it.

Salade Mira-Noa

Adapted from Joan Nathan’s The Foods of Israel Today. Dedicated to Noa and Mira Awad, and wishing them luck at Eurovision 2009 in Moscow.

This does take a long time to prepare because there is a lot of fine chopping. The salad is best eaten fresh alongside hummus and pita.

Serves about 10 people.

- 1 onion (I prefer red for its beautiful color)

- 1-2 T mild vinegar, either white vinegar or cider vinegar

- 2 cucumbers

- 5-6 tomatoes

- Peppers – I like a multicolor mix – 1 each of green, red, yellow, and orange to get that colorful confetti effect

Prepare onion first: chop and allow to soak in 1-2 T vinegar and a pinch or two of salt for ~30 minutes while you chop the rest of the veggies. Essentially this will give it a quick pickling to cut the onion’s sharpness.

quick pickled chopped onions

Finely chop the remaining vegetables – cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers — and mix in a large bowl with the onions.

Dress with juice of 1-2 lemons, a few pinches of salt, a few grinds of pepper, 2-3 T olive oil, and za’atar. Mix again.

Enjoy with friends.

[A very special thank you to Veronica and Joanna for helping me edit and edit and edit this posting, and to Judy for lending me the glass bowls.]

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8 Responses

Beautiful pictures!
I want to add that, contrary to what your classmate said, the salad is extremely versatile. For example, it CAN include lettuce, but people would include only a small amount of lettuce, balanced with the other ingredients (not like American salad where lettuce is the base and the other vegetables are often garnishes), and the lettuce would be sliced in thin ribbons maybe 1 cm wide. Another way I’ve seen people do it, especially a friend’s French-Moroccan stepmother living in Ashdod, is to make it very avocado-heavy with a lot of lemon juice. The avocado is diced like the other vegetables. A few times that same woman served an unbelievable salad of JUST avocados diced, drenched in lemon juice. Mmmmm….

I don’t care for zaatar on my salad. The way my Palestinian Arab co-workers in Nazareth taught me to eat zaatar is in a liquidy paste made out of the powdered zaatar mixed with (ideally homemade) olive oil, and you dip (ideally homemade) flatbread into it. One of my co-workers lived in a little town near Baka al-Garbiya and during olive oil season she brought in a huge jar from her mom. I thought the jar would last a year but we made short work of it in about 2 weeks. What works better on this salad, in my opinion, is fresh cilantro (koozbara in Hebrew). In Israel in the summer, I used to have this salad just about every morning for breakfast (but with scallions instead of pickled red onion) topped with some 9% cottage cheese (hey, I was pregnant most of the time!), olive oil, and freshly ground black pepper.

Thank you, Ariela, for all of these great suggestions on how to prepare this versatile salad and giving some great history and background! I love all of the different “salatim” in Israel and throughout the Middle East/North Africa. Especially the decadent addition of avocado. Using cilantro in lieu of za’atar is a great way to adapt this salad for Passover.

As for za’atar on flatbread — this so reminds me of being in Israel and sometimes when I make challah, I’ll rub some on top before baking.

Wow, your classmate was a real tool. Israelis are simple, no self respecting Israeli would call a tomato and cucumber salad an “Israeli salad”, they would call it a “tomato and cucumber salad” :-) Also, there is really no difference between an Israeli salad and an Arabic salad the only difference is who makes it:-) What I really love about this salad is that almost anything can be added to it. I like avocado, I like to use different kinds of peppers and I also add green olives. Either way, your salad looks fabulous and got me hungry.

Thank you for reading and sharing your opinions.
@Steven – hope and idealism are great qualities and I’m glad to see we share them.
@Yvonna – breaking bread, as you so beautifully wrote, “over a table of artfully prepared food” could be a wonderful opportunity to realize that we share more than we differ.

About

Hi! I'm Gayle, and here I use my Hebrew name Zahavah. I work front of house in a restaurant where I'm learning the hospitality industry from the ground up. Up until a year ago, I was a health care consultant. Also, I have an MD. Go figure! Thanks for dropping by and joining the conversation.

koshercamembert@gmail.com

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